North Texas · Grayson County
Custom homes in North Texas, built by one man who lives here
North Texas is a big place and plenty of builders will tell you they cover all of it. Randy O'Brien does not. He builds in Grayson County and the towns around it, which is the part of North Texas he has worked in since 1998 and can be on site in twenty minutes.
The honest version
The northern edge of North Texas is where the land still is.
Most people searching for a North Texas builder are somewhere in the metroplex and finding that an acre costs more than the house they wanted to put on it. An hour north, in Grayson County, that math still works.
Grayson County has grown more than 13% since 2020, with net in-migration of roughly 3,600 people a year. Texas Instruments began production at its Sherman fab in December 2025. The county is filling up, and the land is going with it.
What you give up is proximity. Sherman is about an hour from Dallas, and that is either the entire appeal or a dealbreaker depending on where you work.
What you get back is an acre you can afford, a builder who is not running twenty jobs at once, and a foundation engineered by somebody who has watched this particular clay move for 28 years.
Where he builds
Five places, and what each one is actually like.
- Sherman County seat, where the Texas Instruments fab is, and where his finished houses are.
- Grayson County Land inside twenty minutes of a town is still reachable here, which is the whole reason people move up from further south.
- Denison Randy is based here, so site visits are minutes rather than a drive.
- Van Alstyne Closest Grayson County town to the metroplex, and the one people commute from.
- Howe Randy has lots available in the Howe school district.
- Pottsboro Lake Texoma access is the reason people build here rather than in town.
Ten a year
He is not the biggest builder in North Texas and does not want to be.
Randy builds about ten homes a year. The large North Texas builders do fifty or a hundred, and at that volume you get a project manager, a call center and a schedule you fit into.
At ten, you get the man whose name is on the sign, on site, for the whole build. That is the trade, and it is the only reason to hire him rather than one of them.
How to compare the bids you are holding